


one of them will destroy the other

by dyintherain



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bioenhancement, Love/Hate, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Minor Violence, Moral Ambiguity, Science Fiction, Superpowers, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28826634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyintherain/pseuds/dyintherain
Summary: Ten wants him back, Kun wants him dead.One wants to destroy the other, while the other simply wants to get through the cracks.It’s a stalemate, but good thing they’ve both got time.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun
Comments: 36
Kudos: 72
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	one of them will destroy the other

**Author's Note:**

> [One of Them Will Destroy the Other](https://open.spotify.com/track/0dQSu1gl7VTipQ6SuiqRCf?si=HKq4yRIBTsWlJj56Qj8wGw) \- Mayday Parade, Dan Lambton
> 
> thank you to [hamleting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamleting) for beta-ing this one! <3

I.

They were eighteen when Kun kissed Ten for the first time. Over the years, Ten would insist that _he_ was the one who first leaned in, but Kun would retort that _he_ was the one who ultimately closed the distance. A third person—usually the newest addition to the group, a poor soul who probably expected something more interesting to happen in a rebels’ convocation than its leaders bickering about the technicalities of a first kiss—would always ask, ‘ _Why does it matter?’_ and Ten would think, _it doesn’t, not really_. But it’s Kun. And things have this strange way of _mattering_ when it comes to him.

Such were simpler times.

Now they’re twenty-eight, and this time when Ten leans in to kiss him, Kun doesn’t move to close the distance. Instead he stands still, nails digging into his palm as Ten’s lips touch his own. Ten feels a tear escape Kun’s eye, wetting his own cheek, then the sharp point of a knife as Kun drives it into his gut.

Things have changed.

  
  


II.

Sicheng still remembers the day Kun was captured.

He’d been a lab assistant at the Department of Morals for almost four years at that point, and despite working in such a controversial agency, Kun’s capture was actually the first note-worthy thing that Sicheng had ever witnessed firsthand. He remembers going up to the sixth floor, peering over the heads of other curious onlookers into the one-way glass that borders the main unit of the Moral Bioenhancement lab to see _him—_ seated in a high-backed chair, hands bound behind him in reinforced polymer handcuffs, small bursts of electricity sparking from the tips of his fingers.

 _Qian Kun_ —one of the founding members of The 7th Sense, the most notorious rebel group in the post-anarchy era. Sicheng remembers thinking, as he looked at him then, that he didn’t look like the menacing frontrunner of the insurgency that the government made him out to be at all.

  


_And he still doesn’t_ , Sicheng thinks now as he stares at Kun’s side profile from the passenger seat.

Kun’s hair is stark white, a striking sight amidst the dark interior of the car. His left hand is loosely gripping the steering wheel, right elbow perched on the open window. He looks so... relaxed, and for a moment Sicheng can almost imagine that they’re just two people out for a drive around the city, that Kun is just an ordinary guy—someone who, in another place and another time, Sicheng might have—

Kun turns to face him suddenly, a guarded look in his eyes. “Stop staring at my scar.”

He wasn’t, but Sicheng gulps and turns his head anyway, looking out of his own window. “Sorry.”

Kun always assumes people stare at him because of his scar, a thin line that starts an inch above his left brow and runs through his eye, even though he’s not the only one who has it. Platinum hair, thin scar on the left eye—they’re all marks of the _morally enhanced_.

Moral bioenhancement is what the government calls it, an intrusive surgery that serves to re-engineer a person’s DNA for ethical betterment, specifically mandatory for _unnaturals_ —people born with special abilities. It’s the perfect way to balance the unfair advantage that they have over the rest of humankind, or at least that’s what the preamble to the law says.

  
  


It’s been three years since Kun went through MBE. Three years, too, since Sicheng got called into the director’s office and was offered a ‘promotion’—that’s what they called it, even though at the time Sicheng didn’t see it as an upgrade. _Re-Integration Warden_ was the official name of the position, sort of like a parole officer, except that Kun’s good behavior is only Sicheng’s indirect concern—despite being widely implemented, MBE is still a fairly new procedure, its long-term side effects still unknown, and Sicheng is tasked to document every single one that manifests in Kun.

The new job did come with a hefty raise, but it also came with this—being out of the lab and in the ‘field’ instead, following Kun around the city, subjecting himself to always being by his side, no matter what. 

Three years, and Sicheng still wonders why he said yes.

  
  


Sicheng didn’t know Kun before the MBE, but he supposes he’s nice enough—if ‘nice’ can even be a measure of morals. He always smiles at everyone, takes care of Sicheng in his own way.

But then again, Sicheng has been there in all of Kun’s missions and has seen him ruthlessly hunt and not hesitate to kill _unnaturals_ who resist arrest. That is, until Sicheng came clean and offered him another way. So there’s that too, he guesses—Kun has never told another soul about Sicheng’s most guarded secret. Maybe that counts to being a good person too.

“Hey, we’re here.” Kun’s voice brings him back to the present. Sicheng looks around and sees they’re already parked in the lot across the 37.5 studio, the government TV network where Kun is set to film today.

Somewhere along the way, Kun has become the nation’s favorite rebel-turned-hero personality. It sometimes makes Sicheng wonder—that maybe MBE is less about enforcing morality and more about weaponizing _unnaturals_ for state propaganda.

“For the record, I really don’t approve of what you’re planning to do,” Sicheng says as he gets out of the car.

Kun frowns at him. “It’s time to send a message. I can’t just live like this knowing he’s out and alive somewhere.”

They cross the street together, but Sicheng stops at the building entrance and faces Kun. “You know what happened last time.”

“What happened last time is I failed to kill him,” Kun sighs. “This time, I won’t be so sloppy.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about _after_. And what’s your master plan for ‘this time’ anyway? How exactly do you plan to kill a guy who can fucking _self-heal_?”

Kun fixes him a hard stare. “You’ll be there anyway when I do it, so why don’t you find out then?”

  
  


III.

“ _...has now been put in custody and is scheduled for an immediate MBE operation. One less villain out in the streets, all thanks to one Qian Kun_ ,” the late night show anchor’s voice blares out from the TV.

“ _You know, Taeil_ ,” the other show’s host turns to his partner, “ _the whole Qian Kun story really provides a strong case for Moral Bioenhancement. Just think—one of the most wanted rebels post-anarchy, now the best superhero working to protect this city_.”

The other host lets out a clearly rehearsed laugh. There’s a holographic display behind them, showing a footage of Kun that’s clearly shot in a studio, the lightning in his fingers sparking and flaring, almost as if in a choreographed dance. Ten can feel his eyes burn but can’t look away.

“ _A superhero indeed, Haechan_ ,” the host says. “ _Hopefully, this will assuage the doubts of the minor percentage of our citizens who still expressed anti sentiments to MBE in the last polls_.”

“Why are we watching the brainwashing channel?” Yuta asks as he enters the living room. Ten absent-mindedly turns his head towards his direction but keeps his eyes glued to the TV.

“Why else,” Doyoung deadpans.

Ten shushes the two of them. The program moves on to another topic, but Ten is still staring at the TV, the movement of Kun’s lightning still playing behind his eyes. _It can’t be_. But Ten knows he’s not mistaken. Two years might have passed, but he has never once forgotten.

“The Faded Condos. 0818,” he mutters under his breath.

“Huh?”

Ten slowly shifts his gaze to his two friends. “It was a message—from Kun, from the footage. He wants me to _meet_ him.”

Doyoung and Yuta glance at each other, their eyes communicating in a language only the two of them speak. 

Ten and Kun once had that, too—Kun has learned how to make his lightning dance since he was a child, but it wasn’t until he and Ten met that a language was created out of their every step, slide, and turn. Their own secret code, developed over years huddled together for warmth in makeshift tents deep in the woods, the only place then where they could be safe from a world that wanted to change their very being.

That was before they met Doyoung and Yuta—Doyoung, who has the power to protect anyone within his sights, enabling them to safely go out into the world again, and Yuta, who can detect fellow _unnaturals_ , leading them to find the others and form The 7th Sense, muster up the courage to try and fight the system.

Before all that, they were just Ten and Kun, living off of foraged plants and hunted meat and the poetry of currents. Before all that, it was just about survival.

“You remember what happened last time...” Doyoung says tentatively, afraid to awaken the memory.

As if Ten could even forget. “He fucking stabbed me as I kissed him. Don’t worry, I remember.”

Doyoung looks at Yuta again, and Ten has had enough of it—of seeing the concealed pity in their eyes and being tiptoed around like he’s some breakable thing when he’s in fact the most resilient out of them all.

“He can’t hurt me,” Ten says firmly, lifting up his shirt to expose the smooth unmarked skin of his stomach, no evidence at all of the wound from Kun’s knife.

“He can’t _kill_ you, but he can still hurt you. There’s a difference,” Yuta says.

“Do you actually think I give a fuck, Yuta? He sent me a message, in our _code_.” Ten stands up from the couch and glares at the two of them. “I’m fucking going and you can’t stop me.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Doyoung stands too.

“Like hell you are,” Yuta exclaims. They glare at each other, but eventually Yuta takes a deep breath and looks at Ten. “Fine. Then I’m going too.”

  
  


IV.

The Faded Condos fits its name—an abandoned development near the outskirts of the city, built only a few months pre-anarchy, and as such has never really been used for anything. Now it stands like a monument to lost time, chipped paint and crumbling foundations.

“Looks like he’s not here yet.”

Ten startles at the voice that is clearly not Kun’s. He didn’t prepare for there to be another person in this meeting. Then again, he’s all too aware of Doyoung and Yuta standing guard on his both sides. Ten takes a deep breath and steps out of the dark corner and into the lobby. “Look again,” he says. 

Ten barely registers Kun and the other figure standing beside him before he hears sudden gunshot, then sees a bullet bounce harmlessly off the air around him, Doyoung’s forcefield of protection shimmering slightly at the contact.

“ _Jesus_ , Kun,” Doyoung mutters as he and Yuta step into the light, too.

Kun’s hand is still raised, the gun still pointed at Ten’s forehead. (All the lightning in his veins, and Kun chooses—first a knife, then a gun, to hurt him. Ten admits he’s fucking insulted.)

Kun lets out a humorless laugh that rings across the empty room. “I would have brought extra ammunition if I knew this was a fucking reunion.”

Doyoung snarls as if to attack, but before Ten can put a hand up to stop him, the guy beside Kun screams. “Don’t hurt Kun!”

Ten freezes, the words landing heavily on his ears—he isn't planning on hurting Kun at all, but the screamed out words somehow make it impossible, even if he was.

Yuta laughs harshly from his side. “A charm-speaker,” he says, and Ten follows his gaze to the unfamiliar guy who’s staring at them defiantly. “So _that_ ’s why. Painless arrests with your ‘villains’ not struggling at all? I always thought it couldn’t be from your lightning.”

Doyoung scoffs as he steps forward, regarding Kun’s companion in curiosity and contempt. “Your hair’s painfully black and you don’t have that hideous scar. A non-morally enhanced unnatural, and a government lapdog at that? I’ll be damned.”

There’s another gunshot, and Ten can’t help but flinch even as the bullet once again pings off the air around them and falls to the ground.

  
  


V.

“Shut the fuck up,” Kun growls, pulling the trigger, even though he knows the bullet will just be wasted. He sees Doyoung and Yuta bristle, but they don’t move, Sicheng’s words still binding them.

Kun turns and glares at him. “Undo your fucking order, Sicheng. I want this to be a fair fight.”

“Fair?” Sicheng growls at him. “How can it be fair, Kun? One of them self-heals and the other has a forcefield!” He stares at Kun with an imploring yet resigned look in his eyes. “Let me just talk them into surrender—they’ll undergo MBE, you can have your friends back.” He bites his lip and adds in a small voice, “ _You can have_ Ten _back_.”

A fire lights up inside his chest at the words. “I don’t want him back, I want him _dead,_ ” Kun grits out. 

He looks across the room, and when his eyes meet Ten, he gets lost in a memory—where Ten’s looking at him the way he’s doing now, except they’re back in their small apartment, and Kun had mistakenly thrown Ten’s white shirt in the laundry along with colored clothes in a sleepy daze. Ten was clutching the ruined shirt with knit brows and frowning lips, but his eyes still held the warmth that Kun knew was reserved only for him.

Kun wishes he wouldn’t look at him like _that_ now, as if this is still all about just a fucking shirt. He angrily looks away.

  


He used to wonder, why he couldn’t just let Sicheng do what he usually does with the other _unnaturals_ that they hunt down. It would be easier—and a small part of Kun knew that it would be the humane and _moral_ option, too, to let Ten and the others live and undergo rehabilitation just like him. But the fire inside him burns too harshly, and he can’t—he almost physically _can’t_ —let that happen.

“It’s probably a side effect,” Sicheng said then in an almost whisper, when Kun dared to bring it up. “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. You loved him too much and—“

“Sicheng,” Kun cut him off, because he could tell it’s not at all what Sicheng was thinking. “What do you _really_ think?”

Sicheng swallowed hard. “Okay, I think—I think they intended it to be that way. MBE is still volatile, and we don’t really know the extent that it affects a person. Remember the last time, Kun? Your body almost couldn’t handle seeing Ten again. It was too much, triggering your memories at the same time as the moral response they’ve hardwired in you from the procedure.”

  


Kun _hates_ Ten, and wishes he still knew which of his thoughts are his own and which are forced on him, wishes he’s not wracked by guilt every time he dares to even think about this, feeling like he’s committing the most atrocious sin.

He looks back at Ten and his two old friends again, recognizing the stalemate they’re in—Kun not able to go any closer with Doyoung’s stupid forcefield in the way, and the three not able to hurt him because of Sicheng’s order that he refuses to rescind.

So Kun steps back, clenching his jaw. He glares straight at Ten, letting small sparks of lightning play across his fingers, knowing that he’ll get the message.

_We’ll meet again. Alone._

Kun takes Sicheng’s arm and walks away.

  
  


VI.

The thing about being able to self-heal is that you tend to get optimistic—

  


“You came,” Kun says when Ten arrives at the old deserted playground at midnight.

“I did,” Ten shrugs. “You sent me a message.”

Kun smirks, but with the shadow casted by the streetlight on him, Ten can pretend it’s just his usual smile. “Why do you keep watching the government channel if you’re such a fucking insurgent?”

He doesn’t get to answer as Kun sends a burst of lightning his way. Ten grits his teeth through the sudden pain—there’s a buzzing feeling in his chest where it hit him, and he feels blood trickling down his nose. But after a few seconds, all the feeling is gone. He looks down at his shirt, burned and smoking at the edges but the skin underneath already stitched back together.

  


—and the thing about morality is, it evolves.

  


Ten has read enough history books pre-anarchy to understand that it’s not a set thing, despite how the government tries to pin it down to a science. They may have succeeded in making Kun hate him and everything about the life he once had with Ten. But they’ve been at this game for a while now, and Ten is starting to see cracks.

“One day, I’m going to figure out how to finally kill you,” Kun glowers at him as he attacks again.

Ten doesn’t even bother to dodge, just lets the current hit him, relishing in how the pain doesn’t even stay for longer than a second this time. “And _one day_ , I’m going to make you fall in love with me again. I’ve already managed it once, but you—you’ve never even managed to leave a wound on me. Who do you think has the better chances?”

Kun’s downturned mouth doesn’t waver, but Ten also doesn’t miss the slight twitch of his cheeks and the flash of amusement in his eyes, no matter how faint it is and how quickly it passed.

“This isn’t over Ten,” Kun promises with a glare. But Ten just smiles. “I know it isn’t.”

  


Because another thing about being able to self-heal? You literally have nothing to lose.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! ty for reading <3 this is my first time writing a darker ?? concept and i hope you like it 🥺
> 
> also, MBE is an actual thing being discussed in some philosophical circles (neuroethics), but not like how it’s depicted in this fic. (it’s more about just pills and stuff hehe. but still. quite controversial.) [here’s one journal about it.](https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6939-15-67)
> 
> [fic moodboard](https://twitter.com/softfordoyu/status/1356619850026606596?s=19)
> 
> [deleted scene](https://twitter.com/softfordoyu/status/1356658612806983681?s=19)
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/dyintherain)


End file.
